From the Couch: The One Play that Kept USF out of a Bowl Game

With no postseason excitement to look forward to, we USF fans are stuck just watching other teams play for a little respect, all the while hoping all the good teams' seasons get ruined out of bitterness. So why exactly are the talented Bulls sitting at home while teams like Marshall and Wyoming are getting an extra game, even though USF's body of work is more difficult? I can boil it down to one play, and I'll share that after the jump.

USF's season has been defined by miscues. Whether it was a blown coverage late in the game, a costly penalty, or a special teams mishap, the Bulls have been victims of some serious bad luck this year. The bad luck can be traced all the way back to before Big East play even started, against UTEP in late September. USF was exchanging touchdown for touchdown early in the game until they began to pull away in the second half. It was then that the pivotal play that changed USF's season occurred. The Bulls had really started to pull away in the 4th quarter, and UTEP was running out of options. They lined up to punt again, with Terrence Mitchell back to receive. The play turned out to be a fake, and Mitchell was USF's last line of defense to prevent a score. T-Rex lunged forward and made a head-first tackle, resulting in his being carted off the field and out for the rest of the season.

After that game, USF put either Evan Landi back to fair-catch punts, or Victor Marc to not catch punts at all. I don't want to pin the futility of the season on one player, but USF would probably be in a bowl game if they didn't have Marc back for punts this year. A defining example of this is the Rutgers game, where USF's defense had just forced yet another Scarlet Knights punt, but Marc fumbled it inside the 10 yard line, setting up a field goal for RU. USF lost that game in overtime. In another very winnable game against Louisville, Marc muffed a punt that resulted in a Cardinals touchdown.

But it isn't all on Marc. Because Mitchell was out, Landi went in just for security purposes with the sole assignment to just make a fair catch. Because there was no mystery in what was going to happen, USF's return game really lost its flair. Once Landi got on the field, the punting team knew it was OK to rest their speed guys and hard hitters.

Bad defensive mistakes and horrible offensive playcalling are what kept USF out of a good bowl game this year, but what really kept the Bulls from seeing the postseason at all was the fact that Terrence Mitchell left us with an injury too early in the season. He's applied for a medical redshirt to cover last year, but he'll at least be healthy to play for USF next year, as long as the hit didn't shake his confidence too much. We always said that T-Rex was going to get himself hurt with the way he handled punts, but we didn't think this would be the way he'd do it. Next year, USF's return game will hopefully see a bit better play, but that's not the only thing that needed work. It's a long offseason.